"The air force repeatedly flew over the Rukoko swamp and bombed FNL fighter units," army spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Adolphe Manirakiza told AFP, but gave no toll.

The sound of air raids could be heard in Bujumbura.

"We aim to stop them from reorganising to attack people or our positions," he said.

Rukoko, on the border between Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo, is a rallying ground for the FNL, the country's last rebel group.

Six rebels and a government soldier were killed Tuesday in clashes over territory near Bujumbura. A total of at least 21 people, including 17 rebels, were killed in two days of fighting on Monday and Tuesday.

Government units had overrun enemy-occupied hills after heavy fighting on Monday and Tuesday in which the rebels had put up tough resistance, said Manirakiza.

"Everything is calm again, we hope that everybody will go back to his hill tomorrow," western rural Bujumbura governor Zenon Ndaruvukanye told AFP.

The announcement came hours after the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said a dissident faction of Burundian rebels had freed 238 child soldiers, ending eight months of negotiations.

The National Liberation Forces (FNL) breakaway faction handed over the children to a team of UN, African Union and government officials in its two camps north of the capital.

They were transferred to a demobilisation camp in Gitega in central Burundi, UNICEF said in a statement.

The central African state is struggling to put an end to a civil war begun in 1993 that has claimed 300,000 lives.

A ceasefire was signed in 2006 between the FNL and the government, but its implementation has faltered with the rebels seeking a power-sharing agreement which the government refuses.

The rebels are demanding talks on political and military power-sharing, while Bujumbura insists there is nothing more to talk about.

UNICEF's envoy in Burundi, Francoise Gruloos, said the rebel faction's freeing of the child soldiers was "a wonderful moment."

A government demobilisation official said authorities would ensure the children return to school or vocational training.

Between 2004 and 2006, UNICEF assisted the demobilisation of 3,013 child soldiers. Thousands of others are still in rebel ranks.

Meanwhile the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) group said in a report released on Wednesday a special unit of Burundi's police arbitrarily detained and tortured civilians last year.

HRW documented 21 cases of beatings and torture carried out in October 2007 by the Rapid Mobile Intervention Group (GMIR).

"Various victims described to Human Rights Watch how they were arbitrarily arrested, beaten with clubs and batons, subjected to death threats and mock executions, and forced to pay large bribes in exchange for freedom," HRW said.

The GMIR was dispatched to Rutegama in Burundi's Muramvya province, east of Bujumbura, to stem surging banditry and curb recruitment by the FNL.

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